A lot of personal data of many people, mostly computer users from the United States, reside on a French server, as NetworkWorld informs. There is nothing bizarre about this, unless you treat if from a "paranoid security geek" perspective.

So, how much info is there? Well, the personal details of thousands. How did it get there? The answer is that people gave it away willingly (they just offered it for freebies) So what's the problem with that? A lot of people's data is stashed on a single server and there is no telling what the people that have gathered it are going to do with it, or what will happen if it gets stolen.

In any case, those people knew what they were in for when giving away data like that for free gifts from certain sites. There is nothing illegal about collecting data that users voluntarily submit and neither is creating a database for marketing reasons. Call me paranoid, but I think that these guys might just get a lot of spam and are also exposing themselves to identity theft. When such huge databases appear on the web they sure draw a lot of hackers.

"Research into the domain name hosting the data has also turned up clues that it may be connected to well-known hacking groups, he said. The server the domain is hosted on also hosts nearly 24,000 other domain names, another indication of possibly either phishing or other scam activity" said Chris Boyd (research manager for FaceTime Communications Inc.) on SpywareGuard's blog. So that is why there are concerns related to the data being stored on this French server...

Bottom line is that none of these guys is in any direct danger (yet), but do note that exposing yourself like that might lend hackers a helping hand if the database is not properly secured.